The Fourth Circuit ruling in Wolfe v. Clarke is available in Adobe .pdf format.
The updated AP report is, "Court Rules Condemned Virginia Man Should Be Exonerated," by Larry O'Dell. It's via WRC-TV.
A Virginia man convicted of hiring someone to kill his marijuana supplier should be exonerated and freed from death row because prosecutors withheld evidence that would have discredited their key witness, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.
The ruling by a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a judge's ruling and moved Justin Michael Wolfe one step closer to possibly becoming the first wrongfully convicted inmate freed from Virginia's death row since DNA evidence cleared Earl Washington in 2000.
For now, though, Wolfe will remain in prison while the Virginia attorney general's office ponders its next move. The state could appeal the latest ruling to the full appeals court or the U.S. Supreme Court, walk away from the case and let Wolfe go free, or accept the panel's decision but retry the Prince William County man.
Brian Gottstein, a spokesman for the attorney general's office, said no decision has been made. The state has 14 days to ask for a rehearing before the full appeals court and three months to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case.
"Federal appeals court refuses to reinstate death penalty for Justin Wolfe," is by Frank Green in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Last year, U.S. District Judge Raymond A. Jackson overturned Wolfe's convictions, finding among other things that prosecutors failed to provide exculpatory information to Wolfe's attorneys and allowed a key witness to give false testimony.
Jackson gave the state 120 days to retry Wolfe or release him, but that order was stayed when the Attorney General's Office appealed to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, leading to the 40-page ruling Thursday.
Wolfe, 31, was convicted in 2002 of hiring Owen Barber IV to kill Daniel Petrole Jr., Wolfe's marijuana supplier, and was sentenced to death. Wolfe also was convicted of a firearms charge and conspiracy to distribute marijuana.
Barber pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison. Barber was the star witness against Wolfe, but he later recanted his testimony and said that Wolfe did not hire him for the shooting.
In 2010, Barber testified before Jackson in federal court and again said his testimony in Wolfe's trial was false and that Wolfe had nothing to do with the slaying. Barber has also said he implicated Wolfe to avoid the death penalty.
In ruling Thursday, the appeals court cited critical evidence withheld by the prosecution, including a report from the police that an investigator told Barber he could avoid the death penalty by implicating Wolfe.
The appeals court noted, among other things, that the state complained that Wolfe was allowed to bring the newly disclosed report into his appeal.
"It is difficult to take seriously the commonwealth's protestations of ambush, when Wolfe had to labor for years from death row to obtain evidence that had been tenaciously concealed by the commonwealth, and that the prosecution obviously should have disclosed prior to Wolfe's capital murder trial," says the ruling.
"The … report is indubitably impeaching, in that it establishes a motive not only for Barber to implicate someone else, but to point the finger specifically at Wolfe," wrote the judges.
The judges further found that the state's suppression of the report was intentional.
Today's Washington Post reports, "Virginia death row inmate wins reprieve." It's by Josh White.
Justin Michael Wolfe, condemned to death a decade ago in Prince William County for masterminding a drug-related murder, again won a reprieve Thursday when a federal appeals court upheld an earlier decision to vacate his conviction and sentence.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ruled Thursday that Wolfe’s 2002 trial was tainted because Prince William prosecutors failed to turn over evidence that could have been used in his defense. Citing numerous examples, the court specifically pointed to a concealed police report that indicates a detective first suggested Wolfe’s involvement to the killer and told the killer that he might get the death penalty if he didn’t implicate Wolfe.
The court’s opinion called such evidence “crucial” and, like the federal district court before it, criticized Commonwealth’s Attorney Paul B. Ebert’s office for not turning over “Brady” material, or evidence that a defendant could use to prove his innocence. The court said the concealing of the detective’s report “undermines confidence in the fairness and propriety of the entire trial.”
“While we look no further than the [detective’s] report today, we do not condone the prosecution’s apparent suppression of other Brady material and the pattern of conduct that it reveals,” the court wrote, later referencing a similar warning the court issued in 2009 in the case of D.C. sniper John Allen Muhammad, urging prosecutors to err on the side of disclosure in cases for which the death penalty is a possibility. “We sincerely hope that the Commonwealth’s Attorney and his assistants have finally taken heed of those rebukes.”
Ebert said Thursday that he is “disappointed” in the decision but also that it wasn’t totally unexpected. The Virginia attorney general’s office must decide whether to seek a rehearing at the federal circuit level or to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
But Ebert also said it appears clear that the 4th Circuit is sending a message that prosecutors should move in the direction of “open-file discovery” in capital cases, which would have prosecutors turn over everything they gather during their investigations. Ebert has said the practice could allow defendants to “fabricate” a defense based on irrelevant material, and the courts in turn have blasted him for not sharing everything.
"Appeals Court Affirms Vacation of Virginia Man’s Conviction, Death Sentence in Murder-For-Hire Case," is by Mark Hansen for ABA Journal.
U.S. District Judge Raymond Jackson threw out Wolfe's conviction last July, saying the prosecution's case against him was tenuous, at best. "A review of the trial proceedings unveiled witness testimony replete with hearsay and speculation," he wrote. "The physical evidence that did exist ... was circumstantial."
The prosecution also failed to disclose to the defense statements by Barber's roommate, Jason Coleman, who said Barber admitted to him that he murdered Patrole, and had acted alone, the judge said. "The substance and nature of the suppressed evidence reasonably undermines the court's confidence in this verdict," Jackson wrote.
In a statement Thursday, Wolfe's mother, Terri Steinberg said she was "grateful" to the courts for doing justice in Justin's case. "Justin is innocent. He has spent 11 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. It is time for the commonwealth to stop pursuing this wrongful conviction and for Justin to come home to his family," she said.
"King and Spalding Pro Bono Work Saves Man from Death Row," is the Layers & Settlement blog post on the pro bono work in the case.
An intense six year effort and 9000 hours of pro bono work by the firm of King and Spalding has overturned the capital murder conviction and death sentence for 29-year-old Justin Wolfe, a man whose trial the court ruled was rife with prosecutorial misconduct.
“We were thrilled about that and very excited to have Judge Jackson conduct such a thorough and careful review of the facts and find that the prosecution failed to turn over a lot of information that would have been extremely helpful in presenting a defense in the murder charge presented against Justin at trial,” says trial attorney Alan Dial from King and Spalding in Washington D.C.
And:
“As a lawyer, you want to make sure that the rules of engagement are set up so that the process is fair,” says Dial who previously worked as an assistant state prosecutor in Atlanta and San Diego, “particularly when you have someone who has been convicted of capital murder.”
“We believe in Justin’s innocence and wanted to dig into the facts of the case and show the court that there was more to it than what was presented at trial,” he adds.
Earlier coverage of Justin Wolfe's case begins at the link. Related posts are in the prosecutorial misconduct category index.
The responsibility of the state to provide exculpatory evidence to the defense was articulated in the 1963 Supreme Court ruling in Brady v. Maryland; more via Oyez.
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